Pantomime audiences are set to jump in their seats, says Diane Parkes after a sneak preview of a 3-D film.

The snake’s eyes are just millimetres from mine. It flicks out its tongue and I can almost feel its touch on my face. Then it leans back and suddenly lunges, mouth open, fangs glaring, white in the darkness.

I can’t help but recoil and would be a goner – except there isn’t actually a snake in front of me at all, it is an illusion.

This is the world of amazing interactives, a world where everything is three-dimensional.

We are sitting in a small room watching a projection of what will be a short film forming part of this year’s pantomime Sleeping Beauty at Birmingham Hippodrome.

It is one of two six-minute pieces, one in each act, where the audience will don their plastic glasses and the action on stage at the city’s biggest theatre will jump out at them, pulling them into the action and forcing them to duck or reach out, depending on what appears to be suspended in front of them.

We have watched the thorn bushes grow as if by magic to protect the palace where the princess is sleeping for 100 years, we have taken a roller coaster ride, we have fended off all manner of beasties and flying missiles and we have seen magic conjured up right before our eyes.

All this has been created in the amazing interactives workshop in Middlesbrough where creative director Tim Dear has allowed the Birmingham Post this sneak preview but I don’t want to ruin the panto for you, so that is about all I am going to reveal.

Mind you we have only seen the bare bones. When this film is projected into the auditorium this Christmas it will be brought alive by interaction with the actors. Helium-voiced comic Joe Pasquale, playing the court jester Muddles, has the job of acting with the 3D – climbing the tendrils outside the castle, riding the roller coaster and ... but that would be telling.

It may be only 12 minutes of theatre – but this film has taken Tim and his team six to seven months to create. Liaising with pantomime director, writer and producer Michael Harrison throughout the process, those minutes have to fit seamlessly into the show.

Tim receives a plot line from Michael with the outline of the piece he would like to see created in 3D – it is then time for the imagination to take flight.

Creating a story board, Tim brings together a number of possible ideas.

“We know we are creating a journey in which Muddles is going from the bottom of the castle to its top and Michael and I then go through all the different concepts,” says Tim.

“We need to factor in the story and it has to look like it is still part of the pantomime. It has to add to the pantomime so it needs to look like theatre not cinema. You cannot expect an audience to move from theatre to cinema and back to theatre, it has to work as a whole.”

Backgrounds are based on the sets used in the show and then Tim’s team build on top of that.

“We are looking to create something which is interactive,” he says. “You need lots of things flying out at the audience, things they can reach out and touch. Lots of surprises and things that will make them jump. Basically you just want to make them scream.”

And there is certainly plenty of action flying around this Sleeping Beauty. But not every idea on the storyboard makes it into the final cut.

“When we were looking at creatures around the castle I was looking for lots of things which could come flying out at the audience. At that stage I was just going through ideas so things like bats, hummingbirds, dragonflies,” says Tim.

“What you are trying to do is create a balance between people thoroughly enjoying themselves and a touch of fear. So you need fantasy creatures which act in a way which is magical and a little bit scary.”

What is more, those creatures need to evoke responses in the actors.

“The first thing I said to Michael when I put this sequence together is that Joe Pasquale is going to need to be very fit,” laughs Tim. “He has to do a lot of dodging, climbing and moving about. And he needs to be able to react to things that will appear as if they are behind him, then to the side of him, then in front of him.

“There is a real art to working with 3D, as you need to be aware that you can never stand in front of the action but you need to be working with it all of the time. You need to be always looking at where something appears to be. If you are just staring off into the distance, then the actor is no longer part of the story.”

Initially Joe had the opportunity to spend time at the company’s studios working with a 2D screening while also having his own CD of the animation to practise. Tim and his team then travelled to Birmingham Hippodrome in early December to install the equipment and give Joe and his fellow actors, this year including Dancing on Ice champion Ray Quinn, panto dame Ceri Dupree and Coronation Street’s Lucy Evans, a chance to work with the 3D in situ.

Michael said: “The actors need to see the 3D in situ at the theatre because of how it works with the space.

“The best actors, when it comes to working with 3D, are the ones who have rehearsed and rehearsed until they know it. It doesn’t work if there are

huge pauses, it needs to be absolutely seamless.”

Sleeping Beauty is one of six pantomimes which Tim and his team are working on this Christmas. Between them, the staff are creating magical worlds for shows all over the country including festive favourites such as Robinson Crusoe, Cinderella and Aladdin.

It is not the first time their work will be seen at the Hippodrome as amazing interactives created a 3D genie who zipped around the auditorium in Aladdin two years ago.

And the company’s links with our city go back much further as its first theatre collaboration was with Old Rep based Birmingham Stage Company when they worked together on the first Horrible Histories show in 2006.

At that time, Tim and his team created a 3D rout of the Spanish Armada for Terrible Tudors in which audience members had to dodge cannon balls and burning bits of debris and a 3D Charge of the Light Brigade for Vile Victorians in which theatre-goers became the valiant six hundred.

Since then amazing interactives, under the brand Bogglevision, and BSC have created four more Horrible Histories and the two companies have now created a Horrible Science show which is due to come to Birmingham’s Alexandra Theatre next summer.

Tim, who studied art at college before moving into computer generated graphics, says changes are happening all of the time.

“I would say that each year we are developing and improving,” he says. “Particularly in what we can now do in using 3D to create a link between the audience and the actor.”

So how does 3D work?

“Basically we need to see an object in the same way that the eyes see it,” says Tim. “Your left eye sees something from a slightly different angle and your right eye sees something from a slightly different angle. With the cameras we are creating what the left eye sees and what the right eye sees and you get the two viewpoints at once. The different viewpoints come together when you then use polarisation glasses to create the illusion.

“If you take the glasses off when you are watching 3D then you are left with simply that, two slightly different pictures.”

Amazing interactives is at the very cutting edge of this technology and creates work not just for theatre.

“We have been very involved in education work,” says Tim. “We do a lot of 3D interactive work which schools can use to teach science, maths, biology. Schools tend to use it as a treat as the children really want to do the interactive things.”

And the company is also working on an exciting project to take their 3D illusions into a local children’s hospital.

“They are building a brand new children’s hospital in Newcastle and we are putting some of our work into their burns unit,” says Tim. “Changing dressings for children can be very painful so they were looking for something which could try and distract the children while they are having it done. So we are creating 3D images which the children can interact with while they are there.”

The project is ongoing but Tim and his team are creating a series of interactive films which can be selected depending on the children’s age or interests. Choices will include blue skies and rainbows for little children and jungle adventures and sports activities for older children. Tim is also taking advantage of his links with QDOS, producers of Birmingham Hippodrome’s pantomimes, to include some of the pieces they have created for shows.

“That is an area where we would really like to do more work,” says Tim. “This is our first project of this kind but we would hope to be able to introduce it in other children’s hospitals not just in the UK but also in other countries.”

But in the meantime it is back to Sleeping Beauty. Michael has watched the screenings and is asking Tim to tweak an image or two.

And this process continues until the beginning of the pantomime.

“There can always be changes once we set up in the theatre,” says Tim. “It may be that once we are working in the space we need to bring an image out a bit further or take it back a bit.

“What we are working with is basically a series of codes so all we need to do is alter them a bit. Once that is in place we can leave it as all that is needed to start running the programme and creating the illusions is for someone to push the button.”